How Social Media Warped Our Idea of “Healthy” | E20

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Hello guys and welcome back to Train Like a Girl. My name is Abby, and I am an online women's health and fitness coach here to unpack all the bullshit with you. And today's episode, no less, we are going to be talking today about how social media has warped our idea of what true health looks like. I'm going to jump straight into, and I'm sure you can relate to this. There was a time in my life, and still to be honest, I still battle with this, but I kind of argue in my mind about this now. But there was certainly a time in my life where I consistently, genuinely believed that the healthiest version of myself would also be the leanest version of myself. And I don't think I came to that conclusion randomly. I think there are obviously so many societal, cultural things that we see or that we grow up around or whatever that could influence what we think the most perfect healthy body looks like. But I think largely social media has taught me what is a truly healthy lean body. But today I want to talk about how that idea of health has been completely warped online, especially for women, because I'm sure you can relate. I remember she had she was veiny, she was so thin, and I had so many pictures of these women from online saved to my phone as my kind of goal body. And at the time, the messaging was subliminal, but it was act well, actually, I say that when we look back at videos of the 90s of like clips of Simon Cowell speaking to contestants on X Factor or clips of uh celebrit celebrities on magazine covers saying like, oh, um, so-and-so has gained X amount of weight and yet they're still bloody size 10 or something. The messaging was actually quite stark, but for some reason it was so common that it just got we just got brainwashed with it. Um, but the consistent messaging was smaller equals better. That's not a surprise to anyone. It was skinnier meant more discipline, skinnier more worthy, skinnier meant more control. And I think what's wild is at least back then, the toxicity in hindsight is so obvious, and we can look at it now and be like, oh my god, yeah, that was clearly so disordered. Like I recently re-watched in a couple years ago, I re-watched um Desperate Housewives from season one all the way through, and the toxicity throughout that was just like it's it's scary that we used to soak that stuff up. You know, America's next top model, the biggest loser. Like, there's so many things that we just soaked up, and it just went in one ear, and I was gonna say out the other, it obviously didn't, because you know, here we are years on, still trying to recover from that era. But we can look at it with hindsight and be like, oh my goodness, that is horrific. But when you're in it, it feels like an ambition, it feels like that's what I want to look like. It feels like, and when you're kind of soaking it up or trying to take advice from these places or trying to follow in line, it feels like discipline, it feels like success, um, trigger warning. But I used to around that kind of similar time through my teens growing up, and I'm sure lots of you can relate to this, if I went to bed hungry, I felt successful. If I if someone would comment on how skinny I looked, I felt successful. I remember occasions over Easter where I'd get bought lots of Easter eggs from family members and stuff, and I would stash them under my bed and keep them there for months and months. And and my ability to not eat it felt like a success. I hope it goes without saying that all of those things are so toxic, and I by no means would promote any of that now. But what remains true is we lived through that and thought that it was normal. And I think what's scary is we think we're beyond that now. And I think the reason we think we're beyond that now is, and I can attest to this as well. We I'm I'm kind of skimming over the years here, but there was definitely then a sort of shift into strong is healthy, right? Like the strong, strong over skinny era. And it it kind of finally felt like things started to change. We moved from like thin spow to fit spow. Um, and suddenly yeah, it became strong, not skinny, and lift heavier and eat to fuel your body, and girls who train, you know, you remember all the hashtags, I don't need to tell you. Um, and I actually remember at the time feeling quite relieved, um inspired. I felt like, ooh, that like I could really tap into this. Um, and I think the overriding message was this is great, the standard is healthier now. And don't get me wrong, there are obviously so many positives that came with this shift shift because women started lifting weights, and I think there was an idea around fueling properly. We started sort of moving away from starving ourselves, um, and I think we moved away potentially from um cutting out whole foods groups, but I think, and and obviously a lot of that was really genuinely powerful. But what I think we ha have collectively realized, and I hope lots of other people are also starting to realize, is the obsession didn't actually disappear, it just changed shape. And the reason I say that is because the pressure, yes, the pressure might have moved away from being thin and it became, you know, being lean and strong, being toned and disciplined, being aesthetic and optimal and being the best version of fitness, but quietly, and I think this is where the subliminal messaging comes in, like whilst everyone's clapping that we're all getting stronger, I do think the extremes still very much exist because it's not just move your body and feel good, it's okay, now how can we be as lean as possible so that we can still have abs and muscle definition, but still build muscle? And in in so many ways, when you truly learn what it takes to look like that rippling, like uh lean, shredded, sort of um aesthetic, when you realize what that takes, in some ways it is just is is as toxic or as extreme as chasing thinness, truthfully. Um but and I think the reason that we were misguided and we we were we were sort of fed this belief that this was healthier, yes, getting stronger is healthier, but what we were failed to be educated, what we failed in was um being educated on what is true strength, because true strength isn't being stage lean. When you see people that have rippling abs, popping biceps, popping shoulders, that is unless the person is genetically gifted, that is typically accompanied by a still a very, very restrictive diet. But on top of that, we're now going to the gym six or seven days a week as well, right? So I think what happened unfortunately was we moved away from thinness and into like strong over skinny, but actually the the narrative didn't ever really change. It was still all about how can we control our bodies, how can we be the top 1%. And I'm just gonna um filter in a little bit of my personal experience through this. I um, like probably many of you, I've lived both ends of this. There was a point where uh there have been points throughout my life that I've been significantly lighter than I currently am. There have been points where I was really thin um and lacked any muscle. I remember a trip to New York when I was um about 17, 18 years old and I couldn't walk one block. Um, I was asking to get taxis everywhere. I had absolutely no muscle, but I was really thin. Um, and then there are other points where I actually looked really fit. I I more closely resembled like a strong build because I had abs and I had popping shoulders. And from the outside, I probably looked like I had it all together. This was quite recently. I got stage, not stage lean, I got photo shoot ready um last year. Um and you know, it as I say, it probably looked from the surface like I was looking really strong and fit, and behind but behind the scenes, I was tracking every minuscule bit of food. I was mentally exhausted, I wasn't sleeping properly, I was cold all the time. I couldn't, I I was so anxious about any social situation, constantly thinking about when I can next eat, and my body started to break down. My body wasn't functioning properly, I lost my period. So that whilst it looked healthy, it certainly was not healthy for me. But the problem is what we see online is not the full picture, and the reason this is so important is because when we see somebody that we think looks strong and fit and lean, it might appear that that looks healthy. And I think this is this is what's happened. We're pushed the top 1% of people, right? So we're seeing people whose entire job is fitness, we're seeing athletes, we're seeing people with genetics that are just not average, we're seeing people with very controlled environments, we and and also on top of all that, we're seeing AI pop through, we're seeing edits, lighting, posing, editing, and we're seeing highlight reels. We might just be seeing 1% of this person's year, but our brain starts to assume that that is what normal fitness looks like, when in reality, it is often, and I'd argue probably all the time, the top 1%. And it's a very unsustainable lifestyle that has been that is so readily available to our eyes, uh, so that we're seeing it every day. So, of course, our perception starts starts to get skewed. Um, so that happened. And then there has another shift as well in recent years, the body positivity era. And I think a lot of people got potentially confused in that era too, because suddenly it was like all bodies are healthy and and we should love ourselves no matter what. And whilst I think that is a beautiful message in theory, it also created a lot of confusion around what is true health and what is true well-being, and what what is just acceptance versus what actually needs support, right? So people are now stuck between don't be too thin, don't be too fat, be strong but not too strong, be lean but not too lean. And and what I think maybe happened there without diving really into the depths of that is nobody really wins. And I think it just created a lot of stigma and a big divide. And I think now, in more recent times, we've moved. Obviously, we are in I feel like we've kind of done full circle and we're coming back to like thin is in again. Um and we're getting those extremes with obviously people taking Ozempic and the like, and we are getting visuals again now of extreme thinness and ex extreme messaging being pushed into our faces, right? And the problem with this is the really, really, really hyper extreme thin or any any um extreme on any um spectrum, like an extremely muscular person versus an extremely thin person or whatever, I think the extremes are really obvious. But what I think is even scarier is the others that are filtering in that are still very thin, but we've almost been warped into believing that they aren't actually that thin because there are others that are even thinner, right? And so even like the the next skinniest person, it suddenly becomes, I think, or the next fittest person, or whatever extreme. Even the even though we're seeing extremes, we think they're not that extreme because of other extreme, extreme extremes, we're getting pushed. Does that make sense? So I think for me now, what I am trying to live in myself is I'm trying to put a filter on. I'm trying to really see things for what they are. Um, and I'm trying to not see health as a look anymore. And remove myself from other people, remove myself from looking at other images, which is really tricky when we're all on Instagram all the time. But what I'm trying to see it as now is energy, hormones, like how do I feel socially? How are my hormones? How is my mental clarity? How's my energy? How's my consistency without feeling obsessed? What does you know how it's about I'm living a life now that is aligned with yes, I've got aesthetic goals, maybe, but they are they're more like I want to feel good in my body, I want to do strength training to support myself and support my old lady self. Um, and this is a really, really tricky shift to make, especially when you go online, you see the next best workout, you see somebody doing triathlons and they've got rippling abs, and then you see somebody doing long distance running and they're really thin and lean and tall, and then you see someone doing Pilates, and you know, we've got so many messages coming at us with the next best thing. Um, but I think what we really need to tap into is how do we feel and what does health actually truly look like on us rather than trying to fit into a box? Because for so many years we are just literally told what we should look like. And I think what's happening right now is we're still in we're looking at extremes, thinking they are normal. But believe me when I say, do you remember looking back at when you know we talked about earlier the footage, footage we've seen coming through from the 90s, like America's Next Top Model and all of those toxic things? You've seen all of the clips. When we look back on that now, we're like, oh my god, that's horrendous because we've got the perspective. But I assure you that we will also do that about now. We will look back at this time and be like, oh my goodness, do you remember when we followed all of those fitness influences and they all looked like XYZ, they all had the big bubble butt, or they all have whatever? I think we'll look back on this time and be like, oh yeah, it was still happening. It was just in different clothes. Do you know what I mean? It was it was the same message, it was all about extremes and using our body as a fashion statement rather than looking at what true health actually is. I remember um speaking to a client a couple of years ago, and we were talking about somebody that I really admire actually in the fitness space, but she had her own journey where years ago she got very, very, very stage-lean. And um at the time that kind of looked extreme. But as the years have gone on, when you look back at those photos, now it looks less extreme because even more extreme, like it almost seems like the extremes are getting more extreme as the years go on, and this is what is scary because we're seeing that, and our brain doesn't have time to catch up almost. I feel like so. Anyway, I was talking to this client and I showed her a picture of this uh influencer from like I think it was from like I don't know, 2014 or something. And at the time she was absolutely shredded, really lean. And my client, a very normal person, um, fit woman, um, said, Oh yeah, but that's easy when you're in your 20s. And I was like, wow, our perception has changed so much, and that's through no fault of her own. I feel like our minds have all just been so warped into what health looks like, and it's so unrealistic that the old extremes don't even look extreme anymore. It's frightening. I truly think I truly feel deeply about this. So do you agree with me? Let me know in the comments what you think because I really think that the extremes have been pushed and we are being shown the top 1%. That not even that. Like I think there are 5% of users on Instagram have a fitness account, and of that 5%, we're gonna be pushed the top 1%, right? Social media favors extremes, it favors things that are gonna get likes, and so things that are above average, above the normal, outside of norms are pushed to us, but to an to because it's all so accessible, it's pushed so far that we start to see that as normal. So if you have ever felt like, or you're currently feeling like you're behind the pack or you're failing because you don't look like these fitness girls or these thins thin spos or whatever, I want to remind you that you are not failing. And actually, what we're seeing is usually very unhealthy, contrary to what you think. You're not just being influenced by a very narrow sorry, you are being influenced by a very narrow version of what health looks like online, and there are so many more sustainable versions than the ones we're usually shown, and I think it just takes looking around in real society and seeing what all different women's bodies look like. So if you are struggling with this and you feel like you can just never look your best, I really would love to work with you. This is the shit that I unpack with all of my ladies in one-to-one coaching. So if this sounds like something that you would love to unpack as well and try and find a healthy, sustainable, strong, fit, fierce version of yourself, you're in the right place. I'll pop some details in the show notes, but please feel free to message me on Instagram if you've had any thoughts about this episode. And until next week, have a lovely one.